After Sam left
by Sweetheart From Hell
Summary: Sam is gone, John drinks and remembers. Rating is only to be completely safe.


**My first attempt to write a Supernatural fanfic, so I hope you all like it. Reviews make me VERY happy!**

**The story is set maybe a few months after Sam left for college, and I imagined it taking place in a motel room.**

**Read and enjoy!**

After Sam left them, John Winchester tried to forget his youngest son. He had left, abandoned and betrayed his family, just thrown everything John ever had given him straight back in his face.

Yet there always was this small voice in the back of his head that whispered the truths he refused to acknowledge, and forcing buried memories into the light.

_A two-year-old Sam gently touching his face, barely reaching over the edge of the bed, teddybear in his other hand. A muffled "Daddy?" through the pacifier, and when John opens his eyes he sees the tears slowly running down his little boy's face. So small, and he's already learnt to cry silently. "Yeah, Sammy boy, I'm here", groggy and still half asleep, he lifts Sam into the bed, and the little boy snuggles up to him, burying his face in John's chest._

He knows he pushed them too hard, raised them into a life no child deserves. Dean learnt to take care of his brother when he was only a small boy, learnt too early that crying wouldn't get you anything. When he was eight, he could handle a shotgun and was left alone with his little brother for days at the time.

And Sam, he had learnt to only cry silently when he was just a baby. He quickly understood that his dad wasn't the one who took care of him, it was his big brother that always watched out for him, put him to sleep and cooked for him.

John gives up pouring every new shot of whiskey into the glass and takes a swig from the bottle instead. _It's not strange that Sam left, I never gave him anything worth staying for. I taught him how to handle guns and how you repel spirits, but I never read him a story. He asked me to help him learn some basic Latin, but ever since he turned three he never came to me after a nightmare._

He had succeeded at preparing his children for a life as hunters, but failed miserably as a father. Why Dean stayed was still a mystery to him.

_Dean had just turned five when the questions start. "Where did mom go?", "Why won't she come back?. Johns tried to answer the best he can, but how do you explain death to a five year old? But he decides to never hide anything from his son, not about what his life's mission is now._

John sighs, rubbing his eyes and tries to convince himself that the moisture he finds there is because he's been staring at the same spot for too long. He takes another deep swig from the bottle, determinedly pushing the memories away, along with the thoughts of his youngest son.

_Sammy… why did you have to leave? Can't you see what it's doing to your brother? To _me_? I know I haven't been the perfect apple-pie father, but I tried! Why did you have to make it so damn difficult for me?_

"Dad?" Suddenly Dean is standing in the doorway, a beer in each hand. "Want one?" It strikes John how young his eldest boy looks. His face that usually doesn't reveal any emotions is open and he looks so damn _sad_. John clears his throat, unsure whether his voice will hold.

"Sure, son." He takes the beer Dean offers him. "Where've you been?"

"Nearby bar. Made some money in a poker game." Dean sits down in the couch, and John turns in his chair to look at him. Sure, Dean is trying to keep his appearance as the tough guy together, but the façade is crackling. He looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, and the clothes seem looser on him.

"How are you, Dean?" The question comes as a complete surprise to Dean. His father has never asked that before. Of course he's always checked his kids are ok after a hunt, but he's never asked like this. And Dean knows it's not his physical state he wonders about.

"I'm fine, Dad." He tries to smile. It feels wrong, he can't recall he's smiled a single true smile since Sammy left. "Don't worry about me." John sighs and abandons the beer, returning to his whiskey.

_Once, when he came home from a particularly bad hunt, just two years after the fire, he'd gone straight to where he kept the whiskey before he checked on his sons. He couldn't bear going in to the kids without something numbing in his system, not after failing to rescue a two year old girl. He'd killed the spirit, salted and burnt its bones, but the little girl was beyond saving by the time the spirit vanished in flames._

_He opened the bottle and drank straight from it, not bothering taking out a glass. He had collapsed in a kitchen chair, buried his face in his hands and tried forcing back the tears that welled up in his eyes. He couldn't get the picture of the little girl out of his head, how incredibly small she had looked, lying on the ground outside her house, her pajamas ripped to shreds, bleeding and bruised in too many places to count. Her mother, kneeling next to her, crying, screaming her name. She'd still been breathing when John reached them, but she was dead before he had a chance to get to a phone to call 911._

_And then he had left. Just left the crying mother and the dead girl. He couldn't look at the kid a second longer, she reminded him too much of his youngest son. And how close it had been that he had lost not only his wife but his baby boy as well that fateful night two years earlier._

_He gave up fighting the tears. He buried his face in his arms and just sobbed, letting out over two years of grief and fear. After Mary's death, he had been determined to be strong for his boys, never letting himself cry or let down his guard. But now, after seeing a two-year-old girl die because he couldn't save her, he couldn't keep it in any longer._

_Suddenly he felt a small hand on his arm. He hadn't heard Dean enter the kitchen, he had been too busy crying. He looked up, and while gently rubbing his arm, his son said "It's ok, daddy, it's ok." John wrapped his arms around Dean and hugged him, wishing he would never have to let go again. Breathing in the scent of his son and feeling his small hands rubbing his back, just like he did to his kids when they were scared or crying, he felt an odd combination of comfort and complete failure. _

John sighs and turns to look at his oldest son, as Dean drains half his beer bottle in one gulp, burps loudly and continues to watch TV. John turns away, right now he can't look at the one son he's got left. The picture is somehow too empty without Sam there, next to Dean, talking to his brother, laughing with him.

John reaches for the whiskey bottle again, and notices that it's almost empty. He's going to wake up with the hangover from the deepest circle of Hell tomorrow.

**Review? Please? If you do I might write more... ;)**


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